Twitch was bought out today by Amazon. But of course you already knew that. What does this mean for us as gamers? It could mean something terrifically enormous, and if you love gaming, you should love this.
First glance, most people probably blew off this news. I sure know I did. Why should I care if Twitch was bought by Amazon? But then I started thinking. The possibilities that lie ahead in gaming are incredible. Get ready to thank Amazon.
The potential I see in this a lot of people will not see; at least at first. It is also extremely possible that Amazon nor Twitch even see it yet. For those gamers who love the community, which is almost the entire population of gamers, this is where you are going to benefit. The gaming community as we all know is incredible, from something as simple as all the support for other gamers all the way to how much the community gets done (such as what we saw when SOPA threatened the internet). Twitch, as popular as it as gotten in the little under three years of its existence, still could be bigger. Amazon sees it as this, no matter how popular it is as of right now, it can still become larger. To gamers Twitch is fairly well-known, however in perspective to people who have access to internet and technology, it could be bigger. And that’s where a multi-billion dollar company comes into play.
Amazon right off the bat has something Twitch didn’t. That being global marketability. If you know about the internet, odds are, a majority of people have no knowledge that Twitch even exists, and if they do know of Twitch, they don’t know what it is exactly. However, if you know and access the internet, there is an extremely probably cause that you’ve not only heard of Amazon, but have used it, or been on the website. Amazon has the opportunity to show Twitch to the world. Simply by buying Twitch the world now knows of Twitch. Amazon can show them off. So right off the bat, gaming is now being more globally recognized. However you aren’t a moron, you know you’re already a gamer, so what’s the point? The ripple-effect that is going to follow is what this all stems down into.
With more gamers, there is a higher demand for an already extremely high-demand industry (gaming of course). Amazon has a chance to blow the cover off an already full pot of gold. With the right marketing and advertisements, gaming WILL make a comeback to television. Gaming will become what professional sports are in America. There is a good chance that the combination of streaming video games and, well, Amazon’s enormous mound of dough, that gaming instills itself in whatever it has been left out of. G4 tried to do something similar, but the only following they could gather were people who were already hardcore gamers. This has a chance to make gaming into something not even us gamers could imagine, at least for years to come. Food Network could inspire a Gaming Network. ESPN could inspire an Entertainment and Gaming Programming (ESGN, I won’t even trademark this just so I can see this happen). The possibilities are endless now that there is a large amount of money and an audience that seems limitless.
As a gamer, I could not be more thrilled by this. Twitch has come a very long way in under three years. And as if we all thought the ceiling had been reached, or much closer, this purchase of Amazon obliterates that ceiling and leaves us with possibilities that go up to the sky. The future of gaming begins today.
Real Retro Gaming 